Cathie Wood Makes Bitcoin Purchase Revelation

According to the creator of Ark Invest, Cathie Wood, who purchased Bitcoin when it was only worth $250, she now owns almost $7 million worth of the digital currency.

On the recommendation of Reagan-era economist Arthur Laffer, Wood purchased $100,000 worth of bitcoin, she revealed to Peter McCormack last week on the What Bitcoin Did podcast. Wood asked Laffer, a professor at the University of Southern California, to research Bitcoin before making the purchase.

Before telling her that Bitcoin was a rules-based monetary system, Laffer said, “I’ve been looking for this ever since we went off the gold standard.” Wood claimed that when she questioned the economist about how huge bitcoin might be, he replied, “How big is the U.S. monetary base?”

At the time, Bitcoin’s market cap was roughly $6 billion, while the U.S. monetary base, which includes reserve balances and all dollars in circulation, was $4.5 trillion.

Wood’s investment of $100,000 has generated an unrealized profit of nearly $7.6 million based on the current price of Bitcoin, which is approximately $19,250.

Cathie Wood: Ark Invest Gets Bitcoin Exposure through Grayscale Trust

As its bets on underperforming tech businesses paid out handsomely and drew a surge of money to its exchange-traded funds, Ark Invest gained notoriety during the 2020 stock market boom. Since ETFs can only invest in securities, Wood’s fund was unable to buy Bitcoin at the time. But Ark did start looking into Bitcoin investment through services like the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, and in the end, included it in multiple funds.

In the 1970s, Arthur Laffer initially gained notoriety when he developed the Laffer Curve, a tax theory. According to this, there is a maximum tax income that falls between a tax rate of 0% and 100%.